Alien Taste by Wen Spencer

Fifteen people attended this meeting at Jeff and Judy’s home. Our topic was Alien Taste, the first novel by Wen Spencer. The book’s story involves Ukiah Oregon, a private investigator raised by wolves, in an unusual case involving with extraterrestrial elements. Twelve of us started reading the book, and eleven finished it.

Alien Taste was full of fun ideas: a private eye who investigates primarily with his nose, lots of action scenes, pod people, invaders from Mars, intelligent hedgehog creatures, motorcycles, and aliens who seem like a cross between vampires and

Ventus by Karl Schroeder

This meeting was held at Charles and Willie’s place. We had ten participants, including one person who came directly to the meeting from the airport after flying into Austin. Another person submitted comments by email. The topic of our discussion was Ventus, the first solo novel by Canadian physicist Karl Schroeder. The story has a strong element of mystery so we won’t reveal a lot of plot details, but it does involve talking rocks, magic, quests, and supernatural winds. All of us had started Ventus, but only four finished it.

Many of us found the story engrossing and enjoyed the ambiguous setting. The characters were all three-dimensional and we even understood the motivations of the “bad guys.” The story alternated between viewpoint characters with different ideas about this world, and we enjoyed piecing together their diverse